1000+ Days Ago

Note:  If you haven’t read “my” long comment to yesterday’s ‘SterCrazy 3 post, I added much more info from Robin Denny about the Bug roadster there.

March 23, 2017.    So how many folks are standing at a high point of the Evergreen ship?

Two?  Six?  More?

 

It was something of an optical illusion, because the lower roadbed was in its last days.

On April 2, 2017 . . . Maersk Kolkata was one of the first vessels to “thread the needle” and shoot through the

opening, where a roadbed had been for almost a century.   Time flies.

A week and a few days later, April 11, 2017

the “opening” in the lower roadway had grown to the point that it was difficult to imagine it’d ever been there.

Photos by Will Van Dorp, who did another post in April 2017 showing other vessels “shooting the needle” here.

 

 

Bayonne Bridge Transformation 1

More of the Great Race soon . . . but a bit of back story.

When I moved to our fair metropolis in 2000 and started paying attention, I was taken by the Bayonne Bridge, so enamored in fact that I choose it as the header image for this blog in 2006, and now out of stubbornness– or something– have kept the old view.

I renewed my focus on the Bridge in 2011, “turning” became the key word in the titles.  Click here to see posts I did for its 80th, 84th, and 86th anniversary of initial construction, and here I marked the 80 mark again twice.   Over 10 years ago I alluded to the raising for the first time here.

Here’s a single post that looks at the change from 2011 until 2017.

For a baseline, let’s use sunrise April 24, 2008, looking from the west, those two boats are Justine McAllister and Huron Service, now Genesis Victory.

And from the east, December 2011, and that boat was Barents Sea, currently known as Atlantic Enterprise.   As to the bridge, note the box-grid work (not a technical term) on the Bayonne side of the arch.

From Richmond Terrace (Staten Island) perspective, here’s the bridge in February 2012.

By September 13, the box grid was covered, possibly to allow sand blasting.

By January 2014, the cover was off the box grid.  Yes, that’s Specialist.

By October 2015, the box grid was being extended upward, as

the vertical supports were being erected farther into Bayonne.

Here’s a December 15 view, showing the symmetry of the construction.

Here’s March 2016, and you can begin to see the location of the raised roadbed.

Here’s a view from May 2016 from the west side of the Bayonne shore.

By August 2016, the new span has been completely defined.

Here’s a closer up, showing the old level–still poet traffic–and the new level, along with the device used to place pre-cast portions of the new road bed.   The tug is Taft Beach.

Here, as seen from the west side, is most of the bridge in September 2016.  Note the gap still remaining on the Staten Island side.

By March 23,  2017, the upper deck was open to wheeled traffic, and the lower deck was ready to be dismantled.

Here’s a closer-up of that opening.

By April 2, a gap existed, and

by April 11, 2017, ships that might have scrapped  year before were shooting through the opening that grew wider by the week.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who will continue this progression soon.

Dalila’s Path

She was waiting on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal just a few weeks ago, so when I figured she was departing the sixth boro, I went out to catch her, esp. since her fleet mate, the 1200′ CMA CGM G. Washington recently arrived and departed in the wee hours before light.

Tugs (l to r) assisting her in the turn outbound are James D. Moran, Miriam Moran, and Kirby Moran.  

 

 

 

She draws about 35′ here.  I wonder how much of that is ballast.

Enjoy a mash-up photo here to close out the post:  I was fortunate to catch CMA CGM Dalila and APL Denver both under the VZ Bridge at the same time.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp,  still looking for photos of helm seats, captain’s chairs.  I’d like to do a post on them.  I’m looking for the full range:   luxurious to decrepit or basic or high-tech.  Email me a photo of the chair and identify the vessel. You don’t need to be sitting in it.  I’ve got a good number of photos so far, but I’d like to see greater variety.  Thanks to all of you who’ve already shared photos.

 

People on the Boro 22

It has suddenly gone from winter to limbo to spring, and that brings folks outside.

Out in small boats, meetings for dock plans,

surveying this strange place called NYC,

keeping bow watch,

racing geese,

or stowing wires . . .

 

 

 

it’s all easier on spring days like this.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Sixth Boro Details 7

Here are the previous 6.  If you want to guess what these are, try;  then check against the answers below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the order is Wavertree starboard bow, Ever Lyric starboard bulb with Ellen McAllister and Liberty IV in the distance, line between c-ship and Kirby Moran, house of MSC Luisa, decorative welds on a backhoe bucket, stern of a twin-screw tug, panama chocks on CMA CGM Dalila, and container bracing gear in use.

All photos taken recently by Will Van Dorp.

Random Ships 49

Liberty Island is a Wisconsin-built dredge from 2002.  Here’s a long history of other vessels from her same yard.

Here’s Swarna Mala (2010) being lightered by Dolphin and Quantico Creek and anchored slightly south of Fidelity II (2011).

White Pearl (1985) ha left the sixth boro and is headed for

Veracruz.

UASC vessel Al-Kharj heads for sea.

It almost looks like a container escaped off the deck of CMA CGM Dalila  and is now southbound on 440, along with three persons of interest walking in the same direction.

That can’t happen, right?

A deep-laden Maersk Sarnia meets Barney Turecamo near the same bridge.

And we will call it quits here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who has left the robots in charge of posting them.